Wendy's tree by Rutland Water

Last Friday at 2:00 we planted Wendy’s tree. Or rather, we planted Wendy’s ashes and two men from Greetham Garden Centre planted the tree. It’s a 14’ oak and it stands by the shore of Rutland Water, next to the path that loops round the Hambleton Peninsula. It was a lovely, sunny but windy afternoon, and it’s a beautiful spot. This google earth link shows you where it is (if you have Google Earth installed – you will need to download and run the attached file).

Most of Wendy’s ashes are around the roots of her tree, just as she wanted. We covered them with compost, and I placed to rest with her the silver Om pendant that she bought in Kerala in 1997. She hadn’t worn it much lately, preferring her trademark Charles Rennie Mackintosh pendant, and her cowrie (‘for valour’) that I now wear constantly. But I thought if there was ever a time to be held in the sacred breath of Brahman, this was it. Jane Flude also placed a few sprigs of rosemary from her garden there (‘rosemary for remembrance’). A little more of Wendy’s ashes we took to Harby cemetery, while the men did the hard tree-planting work. These we dug into the ground of her Mum and Dad’s grave, also just as she wanted.

In a week or so, Wendy’s bench will join her tree. She wanted people to be able to sit on her bench beneath her tree. When you do this, you will look across to Hambleton Old Hall and, over on the far side of the lake, the RSPB reserve at Edith Weston where the ospreys nest. To your right, you should see a dark green patch of mistletoe growing from the bushes above the fence. This is where I saw a robin, on another cold but perfect sunny day back in January when I cycled round the peninsula looking for the perfect spot. The robin chose the place for me.

The tree’s plaque wasn’t ready in time. So in case you visit before it's installed, this is what it will say:

WENDY CRONIN 1944 TO 2007
MAY YOU TOO FIND SHELTER
AND PEACE BENEATH HER TREE
Her bench will have a plaque with different words. I won’t tell you what they are now. You can read them when you sit on her bench to think about what she has left to us. However, it will be a while before you can fulfil her complete wish and sit beneath her tree. Oaks are long-lived but slow growing, and I think it will be a few decades before it will be big enough for that.

The very next morning, I looked out of my kitchen window to see the first little yellow daffodil flowering in the pot on the patio – Wendy’s cheerfulness had come to smile on me. You’re right, Heather, 'sunshine and oranges,' that’s what she’d say. But sometimes it’s the happy memories that make you cry. And that’s OK too.

Naples

For many of us in the Quiz League in the mid 1990s, there was a treasured Wendy moment that is remembered with affection. No one is quite sure of the venue, who exactly was in our team or the opposing team– maybe we were at Knossington, maybe at home at the Stag and Hounds. However, the question to the team was something like: ‘What is the name of the island in the Bay of Naples’. Wendy immediately and seriously said it was called ‘Die’, although others thought it was probably Capri. ‘Why do you think that, Wendy?. Because it’s ‘See Naples and Die’. She was insistent that this was the island and had always thought so. We may have been tactful (probably not) but over-ruled her, and Capri was right. This brilliant topic was returned to throughout the evening as a nice tease but it had sewn seeds of doubt. Some of us got the atlas out when we got home just to be sure. Wendy was sure.

Judy created a convincing Stop Press page in an Italian travel brochure especially for her. This is the text:

Stop Press - New Destination

Neopolitan Riviera – Island of Die

Fly direct to Machiavelli Airport from the UK.

Only 3 miles long, Die rises from the blue waters of the Bay of Naples to the peak of Monte Mortis nearly 222 feet above sea level. Every corner seems to reveal a breathtaking panorama of sea and sky

You will be staying at the 5 star Hotel Lucretzia Borgia.

NEW 2 CENTRE HOLIDAY
Combine a week on the fabulous island of Die with a week on the mainland in Naples - it’s a combination made in heaven! See Naples and Die!

Wendy took this in good part, of course, and was reminded of her Naples moment on many occasions; indeed she often mentioned it herself and didn’t, of course, mind the teasing over many years.

Wendy's cheerfulness

In my garden there is a pot full of cheerfulness bulbs, along with others that probably include hyacinth and iris. I planted them one morning at the end of August 2007, while at the far side of our garden table Wendy was helping Celia and Harvey to plant a pot each of their own "Granny's cheerfulness". Tim had brought his family to see Faraway Granny for what we thought might prove to be the last time. Wendy knew it was very likely she would die before spring, and she wanted these flowers, when they came up, to remind the children of her cheerfulness (in the face of death, just like any other time). She had thought for a while before settling on this activity as a focus to allow her to talk to the little grandchildren about what was happening to her. The flowers themselves were also to be a reminder of her, and a source of comfort at the same time. As it turned out, the little faraway grandchildren did get to see Granny again, last of all in hospital just a week before she died. (The photo shows almost our whole family and some friends after the LOROS fundraising walk on 16 September).

It's early February now and Celia and Harvey's pots are in Whitstable, in their own garden. And I hear they are growing strongly. The bulbs in my own pot are also sprouting well and will soon be in flower. So are the irises I planted in the lawn underneath our plum tree, just in front of the "Wendy house" (what she called the summer house, naturally). In fact the irises are in flower already, along with the snowdrops in the borders. I bought the irises hoping we could plant them together one day, and of course that she would live to see them flower. But as things turned out, she was too ill to help by the time I came to do the planting. And it was a truly forlorn hope that she would ever see the flowers. Like so many other things I wish she could have seen...
Wendy would have loved to see all her spring flowers coming up and the buds beginning to burst on some trees. From our first spring in this house (2005) she thought there were not enough spring flowers, and had been planting more every year. This year might be the first that would have satisfied her. Now I must content myself with the memories they will bring. But one of the strong memories, and one that gives me strength, is that Wendy herself genuinely was cheerful to the end. Exactly one month before she died, she wrote in her diary "the papers are full of Portuguese police accusing Kate McCann of killing Maddy. How my heart goes out to that poor woman who has appeared with dignity for all the months she has lost her child. And I'm only dying of cancer. It puts that in perspective."
Just a few days earlier, she wrote another diary entry: "Life is just going to go on being beautiful for me until I get sick again. I've had another wonderful day." There just wasn't a scrap of self-pity in her character.